A Full Breakdown of the Kansas City Royals prospects headed to the Arizona Fall League

The Arizona Fall League rosters have been released this week with a lot of intriguing prospects on each team. There are six teams full of prospects from Major League teams that will play starting October 6th. I’ll be writing an article and making Twitter posts about each team’s roster. This will cover the prospects from the Kansas City Royals who will be on the Surprise Saguaros this fall. The team will consist of players from the Philadelphia Phillies, Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Guardians, and the Texas Rangers.

Kansas City Royals:

A.J. Causey RHP: The Royals 5th round pick out of Tennessee in last year’s draft has gotten out to a quick start in the minors. After a solid year at Tennessee being their swingman out of the bullpen for most of the season. He continued being able to go multiple innings out of the bullpen for the Royals High-A and AA teams this season. Starting in High-A Causey threw 40.1 innings to a 1.56 ERA and 2.19 FIP. He obviously earned a promotion to AA where he threw 33 innings to a 1.91 ERA and 2.39 FIP there. He has a quick release with a low arm slot. His fastball only sits in the high 80s to low 90s but it doesn’t matter because his secondaries are so good. His changeup is his best pitch sitting in the low 80s. It has a big tailing action and sink. His slider is in the mid to high 70s and is very hard to hit from his arm angle. He’s able to command all his pitches really well and only had a 6.4% walk rate this season. The changeup works well against both sides but especially left handed hitters while the slider is the exact opposite. This is the reason he had a 26.5% strikeout rate this season. Causey will look to continue to dominate this fall. 

Dennis Colleran RHP: Another 2024 pick by the Royals Colleran was drafted in the 7th round out of Northeastern. This season he’s already climbed to AA like Causey but it was only for a game at the end of the season. Colleran started the season in Low-A where he showed some promise throwing 31 innings to a 4.96 ERA and 3.31 FIP out of the bullpen. He struck out 29.8% of batters but walked 14.5%. He was promoted to High-A in late June and threw 34.1 innings to a 1.83 ERA and 4.37 FIP. His strikeout rate dropped a bit to 25% but so did his walk rate to a respectable 10.6%. He was promoted to AA where he threw one clean inning. Colleran has an upper 90s fastball that has topped out at almost 102 mph but his fastball is his only plus pitch. He struggles to throw either of his secondaries for a strike. His slider hasn’t found the depth to work off his fastball well and even though his changeup at times can be a plus pitch he can’t locate it at all. Colleran is only 21 years old and has multiple years to figure out his secondaries. It’ll be interesting to see how the Royals try to develop him. 

L.P. Langevin RHP: Continuing the trend Langevin is another Royals 2024 pick drafted in the 4th round. He hasn’t moved as quickly as the others but that was mostly due to a lat strain that kept him on the injured list until throwing 6.1 rehab innings in the Complex League in early July and finally making his High-A debut in late July. Even though he was a multiple inning reliever in college the Royals were careful with Langevin over the last two months of the season and he only threw 15 innings to a 7.20 ERA and 4.07 FIP. He showed some great strikeout stuff with a 32.5% rate but had no control walking 22.1% of hitters. He throws his fastball in the mid 90s with some rising action and it generated a 40% whiff rate in college. He has the same problem as Colleran though as his slider and changeup are both currently not great pitches. His mid 80s changeup has some great fade to it but he struggles to throw it for a strike. His slider is not as good and very inconsistent in the zone. With very bad command and secondaries he’s another project reliever headed to Arizona for the Royals. 

Logan Martin RHP: An older pitcher in this group of Royals, Martin was drafted in the 2023 draft out of Kentucky in the 12th round and has had two straight solid seasons. He spent the entire 2024 season in Low-A throwing 102 innings to a 3.62 ERA and 3.57 FIP. He continued that success into High-A this season throwing 91.1 innings to a 3.45 ERA and 3.79 FIP. He hasn’t shown an above average ability to get strikeouts with only a 20.6% rate this season and has shown good command at times with a 7.5% walk rate in 2024 and 9.5% this season. There is no public data on Martin since he got to the Majors but looking at a bullpen he threw last offseason his fastball sat in the mid 90s. He has an upper 80s changeup and slider but his upper 70s curveball seemed to be his best pitch. Martin will be starting the second game for the Saguaros this Wednesday.

Hunter Owen LHP: Another pick in the 2023 draft Owen was drafted in the 4th round out of Vanderbilt. In his first full season in 2024 he threw 102 innings in High-A to a 4.24 ERA and 4.16 FIP. In 2025 he made a big jump to AA and threw 94.2 innings to a 3.80 ERA and 4.02 FIP. The big jump was with his strikeouts which jumped from 18.9% in 2024 to 25.9% this season. Even though his walk rate also jumped to 9.7% he was throwing more strikes than 2024. Owen is big on the mount at 6’6” 260 lbs from the left side. His fastball sits in the low 90s and Owen is able to command it especially at the top of the zone really. He also has three secondaries: a high 80s slider that might be categorized as a cutter, a mid 70s curveball, and a mid 80s changeup that has solid movement. He’s not the most exciting starter but is big and can absolutely eat innings at the next level. All these pitches are coming from his 2024 season so I’m interested in what changed for him to jump 7% in strikeout rate and we’ll see this fall. 

Blake Mitchell C: The 8th overall pick in the 2023 draft out of high school Mitchell looked great at the plate in his first full season playing 106 games in Low-A slashing .238/.376/.439 for a 135 wRC+. He showed off his plus raw power with 18 homers and had great patience at the plate with a 17% walk rate. He also had some wheels with 25 stolen bases. His worst tool is his contact ability as he only had a 71.2% contact rate and struck out 30.5% of the time. Mitchell had multiple setbacks to start the season as he dealt with a wrist injury. He went on a rehab assignment in early May but was shut back down until Late June and finally made his season debut in High-A in early July. In total he played in 49 games and hit .207/.372/.296 for a 103 wRC+. He continued his trends from 2024 with a 20.8% walk rate and 32.9% strikeout rate but lost some of his raw power hitting only 2 homers in High-A and his contact rate dropped to 66.7%. Behind the plate Mitchell has a monster arm that used to hit 97 mph when he would pitch. Still he struggled to throw out runners in 2024 only catching 17%. This season even though he had less chances he was much better throwing out 46%. He’s not a great blocker or framer but is reportedly getting better. If he can’t figure it out though, the Royals have Carter Jensen, their top prospect who just made his MLB debut behind the plate. Mitchell has a ton of time though as he isn’t Rule 5 eligible until after the 2027 season. 

Daniel Vazquez SS: The top international signing by the Royals in 2021 Vazquez has been stuck in the lower levels of the minors for a long time. He spent the entire 2022, 2023, and 2024 seasons being the starting shortstop in Low-A but made his High-A debut this year. He had his best season at the plate hitting .260/.336/.349 for a 98 wRC+ and even played 5 games in AA to end the season but only hit .190. Vazquez has slowly been improving his ability to make contact and hit line drives but stagnated at both this season. His jump in wRC+ can be attributed to him hitting more extra base hits into the gap. He had 23 doubles and 5 triples. Vazquez will never be able to be a player who can hit home runs as he only has 6 total since starting with the Royals in 2021 but he can use his speed to be valuable. He stole his most bases since 2023 this year with 26. Vazquez is known mostly for his glove though playing shortstop where he’s very agile and athletic. He’s already eligible for the Rule 5 Draft but I don’t expect Vazquez to be put on the 40 Man Roster this offseason. 

Carson Roccaforte CF: Drafted in the compensation round after the 2nd round Roccaforte was the 66th overall pick in the 2023 draft and after a disappointing first season he’s broken out this year. In his first full season in High-A Roccaforte slashed .208/.292/.342 for a 87 wRC+. This season with 82 games in High-A and 45 in AA he has slashed .258/.373/.470 for a 138 wRC+ with 18 homers and 43 stolen bases. He dropped his contact approach at the plate to add more power leading his ISO to jump from .134 to .212 and 18 more extra base hits including 8 more homers. He also upped his walk rate going from 10.5% in 2024 to 14.9% this year. Even though his strikeout rate did jump 3.4% to 29.4% it didn’t matter because he was hitting the ball hard. Roccaforte was thought to be a Gold Glove defender in centerfield coming out of the draft with enough athleticism to have some potential at the plate but he’s shown a lot with the bat already while still being elite in center. I’m expecting Roccaforte to jump up Royals prospect lists this offseason especially if he can carry over his success into the AFL.

Thank you for reading for shorter breakdowns check out my Twitter @drew-durstock. Each day I'll release a new team's prospect breakdown.